About

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - Classic Turn-based Tactical JRPG

$45,289

pledged of $40,000 goal

1,197

backers

We've updated our stretch goals and the former "New Idle Animation" stretch goal is now part of the base game. It has been replaced by a "Hard Mode" stretch goal. Here's what the new idle animation will look like in game:

Add-Ons

If you've been wanting to fine tune your pledge to receive extra rewards (such as another copy of the game for example), you can now do so!

Simply click the Manage your pledge button near the top of the page and then increase your pledge in the Pledge Amount box to represent your new total (do not change your pledge tier, just the pledge amount). Just tally the price of your tier with any of the extra rewards you want from this list:

Additional copy of the game (on any of the platforms supported at launch): 20$ per copy.

Soundtrack of the game: 10$

Closed Beta & Discord access: 10$

We've partnered with BackerKit to make handling the add-ons as smooth as possible and we'll be sending a survey after the end of the campaign to know exactly which add-ons you selected.

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is a story-driven tactical RPG, set in a fantasy world with a touch of steampunk. It features a deep class system, intricate character customization and classic strategic gameplay.

An enemy archer taking their turn

Fell Seal is often dubbed the spiritual successor to classics like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. It takes a lot of inspiration from these great titles but brings its own improvements and additions to the genre.

Fell Seal boasts a slew of features, including 20+ classes, 200+ abilities, 240+ pieces of gear and 40+ different gorgeous environments with full elevation and topology. We're aiming at a 25-35 hours normal playthrough, with 10+ hours of optional end-game content.

Beautiful and dangerous environments

We are primarily a team of two passionate industry veterans, with multiple decades of experience working on AAA and Indie titles, who decided to go all out and fulfill their dream!

We have a demo available for Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark. It features the first 2 story battles of the game and should give a good idea of the gameplay and how the story unfolds.

You can get the demo for Windows, Linux or Mac at any one of these fine sites

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark features classic tactical gameplay. The core of the game takes place on our lush battle maps, either in story cutscenes or fighting for your life in dangerous combat. You will also have access to the world map, where you can plot your next move and equip and prepare your troops.

Basic worldmap layout

Combat is a big part of the adventure in any tactical RPG, and Fell Seal delivers complex battles with varied objectives and multiple strategic possibilities.

Using the environment to your advantage (and showcasing teleportation boots)

In Fell Seal, battles are turn-based, with each character having their own turn. You will be facing down scores of enemies in thoughtfully-designed maps, filled with details, elevation and treasures. How you use the map to your advantage, which characters you bring along, what strategy you adopt: all these will be instrumental in securing your victory.

Fell Seal has some fairly challenging encounters, so expect that some of your units will fall in combat. When that happens, your characters are not permanently lost, instead they will suffer an injury, which lowers all their stats until they have recovered by resting (not participating) for some amount of battles. This avoids reload fests that might arise from making small mistakes in combat, while still maintaining a penalty for making said mistakes. It also encourages you to create more "core units" than the basic 6 that can participate in combat at any one time, which means even more units for you to take a special interest in.

Thunder II spell in action!

As you advance the story and grow your characters, both in numbers and in strength, you will want to access the troops management menu and select their class, sub-class, abilities and equip them with all the gear you've been looting, crafting or purchasing!

Equipping some gear

With over 20 classes and sub-classes for your characters to select, you will be able to create the unique combination of troops that you envision!

Selecting equipped abilities

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark has over 20 regular classes available to the player and many secret classes with special requirements to unlock.

Each character can select their current class from any of those they have access to. New classes will become available as you learn enough abilities in previous classes.

Unlocking Scoundrel and Knight classes

On top of selecting your current class, you are also able to select a sub-class. In combat, a character will have access to all the skills they currently know on their selected class and sub-class, thus creating great flexibility in what actions your troops can take. Should you create a versatile fighter with a touch of magic? Or perhaps a specialized healer with access to all the restorative arts? These are just a glimpse of the possibilities that you will have to weigh when preparing your team.

On top of all these class options, your units can increase their character level as they earn EXP points in battle, which will raise their stats, HP, MP and make them more formidable combatants. Every class offers different stats increase, which gives you another area where you'll have the freedom to carefully cultivate how they evolve.

When we play tactical RPGs, we really love it when we can personalize our characters! With all the character customization options at your disposal, you have the power to create unique characters that are truly yours on a functional level. But what about their looks? If you happen to like the Fellblade class a lot, is your lineup destined to all look the same?

In Fell Seal, you can customize any non-story character to look exactly how you want them to. You can recruit male or female characters and select their portrait, outfit, hat, hair, face, eyes, accessories, colors... well, you get the idea!

Customizing a recruit's appearance

The lands of Fell Seal are rife with potential conflict, and you'll be facing a multitude of enemies during your adventures. You will of course be facing other human troops, with their own classes, sub-classes and abilities. But not every adversary hails from the lands of man and you will also face many a monstrous enemy. While they may not boast a fancy class and sub-class, they have their own set of deadly and unique abilities, which you will need to adapt to if you are to survive the encounter unscathed!

And there will of course be special enemies: mythical creatures of unknown origin, possessing incredible destructive power and a desire to use said power... usually on you.

The story of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark takes place in a fantasy world where all the lands are unified under the rule of the Immortal Council, a group of eternal rulers with the purpose of keeping stability and order throughout the world. Their stated goal is to avoid a repeat of the great catastrophe that saw them rise to power a millennia ago, when they took down a savage mythical beast on a rampage.

The Council relies upon their mortal agents, the Arbiters, to guard the land's people and enforce the peace. Arbiters range over the land, rooting out bandits, unruly monsters, and crooked officials; their word is law.

You will be taking control of Kyrie, one such Arbiter, as she uncovers the deepening corruption pervading her order. It'll fall to you to halt the spread of a threat as great as the catastrophe that gave rise to the Immortal Council so long ago.

These are but a few of the storied characters that will be accompanying you during your tribulations.

The story is told with detailed in-game cutscenes, in the style of classics like Final Fantasy 6 and Tactics Ogre.

Fell Seal brings bright and vivid environments with high-detail, high-resolution pixel art. The whole game is exclusively in 2D, as that's what we love the most!

The style is a mix of semi-realistic, semi-anime art, evoking a slightly dark fantasy world with a touch of steampunk.

A cave level in Fell Seal

Rakkerjak concept art

Reiner early sketches

The soundtrack for our game is being written by Jan Morgenstern, an
award-winning film and games composer from Germany. This is not our
first collaboration with Jan; more than a decade ago, when our head
developer worked at Studio Archcraft, Jan provided the music for the
studio's Nintendo DS title, Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled. Back then
the team was very happy with Jan's contributions, so we're excited that
he was eager to join us and add his musical voice to Fell Seal:
Arbiter's Mark.

For the music, Jan is coming up with a lush orchestral fantasy score full
of memorable melodies and sprightly charm. In his own words, he aims to
bring you the unapologetically catchy writing of the best RPG
soundtracks from past gaming generations, in a 21st century sonic livery.
Is he succeeding? You be the judge - you can check out the game's main
title theme and an in-game battle cue here:

While your pledge on Kickstarter means everything to us, there are other ways you can support our campaign! Help us spread the word on your favorite social media platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, or tell your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, pizza delivery boys... you get the idea!

Every goal reached helps tremendously with spreading the word about our campaign! As a thank you, as we meet new goals, we'll be adding new features to the game, such as expressions for dialogue portraits and new options to customize characters!

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark will be released on Windows, Mac, Linux and Xbox One. We have plans for PS4 as well, but we can't confirm anything yet on that front, other than it looks promising. We're also considering the Switch, but it would most likely be released at a later date.

We're currently looking at March 2018 for the Steam Early Access and Q3 2018 for Release, with the Beta access happening as soon as possible (probably December 2017).

Obviously, $40,000 isn't anywhere near the cost of creating a video game of the scope and magnitude of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, so what's the deal?

We're a primarily a versatile team of 2: a programmer and an artist, who can cover most of the work by themselves. Since we're not paying ourselves any salaries, the bulk of our expenses comes from the music and contracted artists, which is more manageable.

For the sake of transparency: while Fell Seal has been in the works for just a little over 2 years, we've actually been planning it for over 6 years, so even though we're both working full-time on it, we've put aside enough savings these past 6 years to complete the game regardless of the outcome of the Kickstarter. But, without the added funds from the Kickstarter, we won't be able to retain the services of all our contracted artists. And without their added help, it'll take our lone artist a long time to get everything done, and the quality won't be as impressive as it could be.

That's where the Kickstarter and your support comes in! With these extra funds, we can keep hiring very talented artists to both speed up the development time and include more features and polish and truly make Fell Seal the beautiful and ambitious game we envision!

As such, music, marketing, and a lot of the art costs are already covered by our personal funding. This is what our Kickstarter and overall budgets look like:

Also, to us, Kickstarter is a great place to build a community for Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark and to leverage the feedback, comments and suggestions we'll be getting from the fans here to improve the game and ensure we make the best design decisions possible. A big thanks to everyone in advance, as we know your input is going to make a big difference!

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is being created by a duo of developers, with the help of many contracted artists. The duo is composed of Pierre and Christina Leclerc a married couple with a lifelong passion for video games and, especially, RPGs. Pierre and Christina started dating 7 years ago during a session of Dungeons and Dragons ^^

This project is powered by Backerkit.

Risks and challenges

Some of the most common risks of indie development are running out of funding and delaying the project completion.

We've spent 6 years accruing funds in preparation of Fell Seal by working in the game industry for large studios. By using those savings, we have enough funds to bring the game to completion and release it.
Having an extra boost from Kickstarter will enable us to add more features, increase the polish level, and deliver the game faster than otherwise, but we are confident the game will be great even without it :)

As for the game being delayed, this is always a possibility and is a very common occurrence in the world of game development.
That being said, we've been very busy in the past year contracting extra (awesome and talented!) artists, in part to speed up the development process. This has paid off so far and we've been making good time! :)

In any serious project, there will always be surprises and unforeseen issues that come up. But, we believe we are well equipped to deal with those challenges, as our project lead has 15 years of experience working in the game industry, on top of having already successfully released an indie title in the past.

Our team has already spent 2 years working on Fell Seal and been preparing for it for over half a decade. We will bring this project to completion! :)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $20 or more
About $20

Arbiter

Includes a digital version of the game on Steam (Windows, Linux, Mac) or Xbox One. If any other platforms are confirmed at launch (such as PS4, see our comments in the Platforms section!), you may opt for a version on that platform instead. Your name will be listed in the game's credits in a special bronze backer section.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 25 or more
About US$ 25

Arbiter Captain

Includes a digital version of the game on Steam (Windows, Linux, Mac) or Xbox One. If any other platforms are confirmed at launch (such as PS4, see our comments in the Platforms section!), you may opt for a version on that platform instead. Also includes a game manual filled with lore, developer tips, secrets and game art. Your name will be listed in the game's credits in a special bronze backer section.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 35 or more
About US$ 35

Arbiter Vanguard

Get access to the early Beta builds and a private beta-backers Discord server. Your suggestions and feedback will help us improve Fell Seal! Includes all content from Arbiter Captain. Your name will be listed in the game's credits in a special silver backer section.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 60 or more
About US$ 60

Famous Arbiter

Provide us with 2 names, one for monsters and one for humans, and they will be used when randomly selecting names for characters and enemies (subject to our approval). Includes all content from Sonorous Arbiter. Your name will be listed in the game's credits in a special gold backer section.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 250 or more
About US$ 250

Mercantile Arbiter

Send us a picture of you and a greeting and we will create a shopkeeper sprite and portrait from it. Your likeness will be manning the shop or guild of one of the world's major cities and welcoming customers with your greeting (subject to approval). Includes all content from Famous Arbiter. Your name will be listed in the game's credits in a special platinum backer section.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 500 or more
About US$ 500

Arbiter Creator

Design a special encounter in the game (select the enemies, their skills, classes, equipment, positions, any special dialogue, rewards, etc, and tell us how you want their AI to behave for the battle) (subject to approval). Includes all content from Arbiter Portrayer. Your name will be listed in the credits as a designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 1,000 or more
About US$ 1,000

Arbiter Hero

Design a special human class (including the class hat and abilities) (subject to approval). Design a special encounter in the game (select the enemies, their skills, classes, equipment, positions, any special dialogue, rewards, etc, and tell us how you want their AI to behave for the battle) (subject to approval). Includes all content from Arbiter Portrayer. Your name will be listed in the credits as a designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 2,500 or more
About US$ 2,500

Legendary Arbiter

Design a boss monster (including their sprite, portrait, general behavior and abilities) (subject to approval). Design a special human class (including the class hat and abilities) (subject to approval). Design a special encounter in the game (select the enemies, their skills, classes, equipment, positions, any special dialogue, rewards, etc, and tell us how you want their AI to behave for the battle) (subject to approval). Includes all content from Arbiter Portrayer. Your name will be listed in the credits as a designer.